Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to reduce therapy waiting times for young people with mental health challenges.

The Government is investing an extra £688 million this year to transform mental health services by hiring more staff, delivering more early interventions, and getting waiting lists down so children can have the best possible start in life. We are delivering on our commitment to recruit an additional 8,500 staff across children and adult mental health services by the end of the Parliament, with 6,700 of these extra workers having been recruited since July 2024.

We also want to intervene much earlier to support better outcomes for children and young people. That is why the 10-Year Health Plan sets out how we will work with schools and colleges to better identify and meet children's mental health needs by expanding mental health support teams in schools to cover 100% of pupils by 2029/30, and by embedding mental health support in the new Young Futures hubs, to ensure there is no 'wrong front door' for people seeking help.

Additionally, we are continuing to provide top-up funding of £7 million to 24 existing early support hubs to expand their services and to take part in an ongoing evaluation of these services in 2025/26. This funding will enable the supported hubs to deliver at least 10,000 additional mental health and wellbeing interventions, so that more children and young people are supported.